THE JOBS OF PRINCES AND PRINCESSES

Last evening, I was watching ABC News.  At the very end, they did a story about what children around the world think princes and princesses do.  Some of the answers were cute, describing where they sit and that they do not work.  Other answers were really moving.  One child said that the princes and princesses help people like the homeless and children in orphanages.  It made me think that children really do count on people in authority for a lot. 

It occurred to me that maybe children count on all adults for a lot.  I wonder how often we disappoint them because we too often decide that our adult needs and interests supercede those of children most of the time.  If that were not true, we would not have so many children living in poverty, even in our country, the most wealthy in the world. 

Maybe we adults need to examine our priorities and start putting our children at the center of what we do.  We don’t have to be royalty to make a difference.  I know this is not profound, but seeing those children so serious and sincere, it made me want to commit even more strongly to the well-being of the youngest generation. 

We need schools more than prisons, good living conditions more than subsidies for corporations, decent healthy food more than a military that polices a world that doesn’t care for our actions, and health care for everyone more than for super rich people.  Let's get our priorities straight, O ye in Congress.  Worry less about abortion and more about the living breathing children who depend on you to act like princes and princesses who help people.

Peace,

Ruth

The American Pandemic

America is in the midst of an epidemic.  I don't know the statistics, but based on the people I've talked to in the last year, I'd say at least 30% are infected, with another 10% highly susceptible.  One peculiar symptom of this disease is that the victims become proud of their affliction and reject treatment.  They infect their children, not by accident, but deliberately.

The epidemic?  Ignorance.

Bad enough a bunch of folks in Texas booed at a respected scientist because he said the moon reflected the sun's light.  No one's played that stupid card since Galileo was excommunicated.

Now take Donald Trump (please).  He calls himself a presidential contender yet, does he talk about the economy?  The budget?  The environment?  America's military involvements?  Anything that could be vaguely regarded as a real issue?  No, his main talking point is Mr. Obama's place of birth.  The certification above--what most of our parents took home from the hospital, in lieu of birth certificates--has been floating around the Internet for 4 years now, along with a copy of the president's passport, which you can't get without a US birth certificate.   That should have been enough for intelligent people.  But Donald Trump?  Nuh-uh.

Yesterday, the President asked the State of Hawaii to release his birth certificate to the public.  Did Trump act embarrassed when his claim was proven wrong?  No, he puffed out his chest and took credit for the birth certificate.

I remember a former president in this century who used to do that sort of thing.  You know, the president responsible for all the US soldiers killed in Iraq because of WMDs that never existed?  That whole "Mission Accomplished" thing?

I won't accuse Trump of being ignorant.  Just the opposite--he's cunning, and likes to manipulate people who are ignorant to get what he wants.  Frankly, he's not doing anything different from half the Republican politicians in federal and state governments.  Their policies call for cuts in education.  Why?  Because educated people can figure out when they're being conned.

Lincoln said that you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time.  What it boils down to is, the more people you can keep ignorant, the more you can fool.  And really, you only have to fool 51% to win an election.

Do yourself a favor.  Seek the truth.  Insist that your politicians talk about issues.  Insist that they do their homework.

Don't be stupid.
muon

To NAP or NOT TO NAP

by Ruth Sheets

The media and transportation officials are hot now to do a “gotcha” on Air Traffic Controllers. It is like a rerun of 1981 when the ATCs tried to get a good contract and President Reagan shut them down (in the interest of public safety, of course). ATCs work under conditions most people could not begin to do and they have more lives in their hands every day than any other workers I can think of.

Instead of a acknowledging that the reason Air Traffic Controllers might fall asleep on duty is not related to character flaws or incompetence, they are suspended or fired when it happens. That leaves fewer people to do the job and puts more people at risk. When it is suggested that a brief nap might help relieve fatigue and stress, our Secretary of Transportation blurts out that they are not being paid to nap and that it won’t happen on his watch. 
 
I guess the word “nap” sounds wimp-ish, and if one just “bucks up,” one won’t need that baby rest. Words like “overwork” and "poor scheduling” sound like whining and can easily be dismissed as the complaints of the lazy.

Taking a brief refreshing nap during an already scheduled break could significantly increase alertness, but "if anyone finds out . . . " Maybe we could begin with such a simple, elegant, FREE partial solution to this challenge, but I suspect someone will be receiving a large paycheck to “study” the situation and will give the exact same “nap” a grown-up name like “temporary withdrawal from environmental stimulus,” that is, if anything is done at all.

There is always a rug to shove the problem under, and it will stay there despite the current “concern,” until there is another incident, or worse, an accident, due to overwork and poor scheduling. Of course, it will be the Controller’s fault.

Peace,
Ruth

An Earth Day tribute to Ronald Reagan

You remember President Reagan?  He was the one who deregulated the air traffic controllers and fired the lot of them.  His new hires are now all beginning to retire at once.  Because of the deregulation, the replacements aren't being trained properly, so they're taking naps while on duty.  How ironic that one of the first controllers to be caught sleeping worked at Reagan Airport.

But let's talk about the environment a minute.  Back in the Carter years, OPEC made petroleum scarce and the price of gas shot up to--gasp--over a dollar a gallon.  Everyone started acting sensibly--buying smaller cars, lowering thermostats, etc.  President Carter began to promote alternative energy sources.  One of his projects was to install solar panels on the White House for a hot water system.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan worked his special magic and petroleum prices came down.  In 1986, Reagan had the White House solar panels removed.  The message:  We don't need no stinkin' unprofitable solar energy.

We're now paying for the Middle East political finagling of those years and the administrations to follow with wars, unrest, and gas prices over $4 and still rising.  We're paying for it more with climate change that's nearly out of control.  The leftover Reagan taming-of-the-Wild-West attitude isn't helping matters.  Unlike the 1970s, people now seem to think they're entitled to their big gas-guzzers.  Small cars are barely advertised.  Homes these days are filled with more lights, and with more and bigger electronics that always pull power, even when they're shut off.  Everyone seems to feel that someone else ought to be doing something to fix environmental problems, but buy a more efficient car?  Turn off the lights and power strips when you leave the room?  God forbid.

Last year, a company named Sungevity offered to donate a full solar system for the White House.  They were refused.  I've read weird excuses for this:  that a White House solar system would only emphasize how expensive they are and show the President as being "out of touch," or that somehow this would encourage every nut out there to donate alternative energy to the White House (is that a bad thing?).

No one who has mentioned the Carter/Reagan solar story has hit on the crucial point:  Since 1986, taxpayers have paid for EVERY DROP of hot water in the White House.  Had Reagan left those panels in place, we would have at least saved money on sunny days.  Over the last two decades, that would have been added up to a fairly substantial savings.

A full solar system on the White House now would not only heat the hot water, but probably make enough electricity to sell back to the power company occasionally.  Imagine, a government project MAKING money.  And if Sungevity donated it, this would be at no cost to the taxpayer.

What the President ought to do to show he gets it about cutting government costs is to have that solar system installed on the White House.  Either that or stop taking hot showers at our expense.

He also ought to encourage companies to RENT solar panels to consumers at affordable prices.  The consumer gets solar energy, the company gets the rent payments plus money from any electricity sold back to the grid.  Everyone wins.  Including the earth.

muon

The New Republican Landscape

If you have to read one article today, read this one in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18mon1.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

Then decide if this is the kind of America you want your kids living in.  Or maybe barely surviving in.

muon

TAXES (scared yet?)

by muon

Republicans love the word "TAXES."  They can scare people with it.

The other day, President Obama gave a speech putting forth his proposal for budget cuts.  He broke down the current government spending this way:

66.6% -- spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, national security.
20% -- unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans’ benefits, tax credits for working families
12% -- education, clean energy, medical research, transportation, food safety, keeping our air and water clean.
rest -- interest on the debt

The Republican plan for budget cuts includes a 70% cut to clean energy, a 25% cut in education, a 30% cut in transportation, and cuts in college Pell Grants.  These cuts sound big, but as you can see from above, they'll effect less than 12% of the entire budget.

The Republican plan would also do away with Medicare and Medicaid as we know them, so that only the rich would be able to afford to grow old or become disabled.  I took care of elderly parents.  Without Medicare, they would have lost their house and most, if not all, of their savings.  In trying to punish the very people responsible for America surviving every crisis from WWII on, the GOP comes across as bullies picking on the old and infirm.  I'm guessing their own parents and grandparents might like to disown them about now.

The Obama plan calls for cuts in redundant and bloated defense spending.  The Republicans say defense can't be cut.  They puff their chests out and claim they'll protect America with a strong national security.  Yet on April 3rd, the New York Times reported that an audit of Pentagon spending found $70 billion in waste.   The Chiefs of Staff themselves are saying Pentagon spending cuts are necessary.  If President Eisenhower (a Republican) were alive today, he'd be the first to point out that putting money into transportation is more important to the country's security than all the wasteful defense spending in Washington.  National security is the reason we have interstate highways.

However, the biggest Republicans objection to Obama's plan was, as they put it, raising taxes on the American people.  They called this a "non-starter."  What you won't hear any of them mention is what Obama actually said.  Here it is:

"...[itemized deductions in the tax code] provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn’t itemize.  My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans – a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years.  But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further.  That’s why I’m calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple – so that the amount of taxes you pay isn’t determined by what kind of accountant you can afford."

The president's plan wouldn't effect 98% of American taxpayers, or in making the tax code simpler, would BENEFIT 98% of American taxpayers.  That's not just Democrats or just Republicans.  It's not even just poor people.  It's 30% more than the number of Americans who voted in the 2008.  98%.   That's almost everyone.

If the GOP balks at that, it can simply mean that they're representing only 2% of Americans.  Perhaps the number of seats they hold in Congress ought to reflect this.  I'm guessing that's what they're afraid of when they loudly imply that all taxes will go up under the Obama plan, and leave out the real details.

muon

What's In It For You?

I saw a Clay Bennett political cartoon yesterday (view it by clicking here).  It was a mouse in a Tea Party T-shirt, holding a sign that read "Support the Fat Cats."

If you get it, you don't have to read this blog.  Go have a nice day.  If you don't get it, let me explain that it's not in the mouse's personal interest to support cats at all, let alone ones who like to eat.  And yet, this mouse is.

I'm not picking on the Tea Party specifically.  I've been seeing this phenomenon elsewhere--people supporting groups and causes that are completely adverse to those people's self-interests.  If you're poor, it doesn't make sense to support the very policies making you poor.  If you're bullied, you don't help the bully. If someone's stepping on your foot, you don't put your head on the ground so they can tromp on that, too.  If you're being attacked, you either run away or fight.  You don't start beating yourself up.

From what I see, though, the Tea Party does seem to have a lion's share of those committing self-interest suicide right now.

I get the cartoon, but I don't get that.

muon

BORN ON THIRD BASE

OK, now Congress has passed the minuscule part of budget needed to manage the debt. I have not yet heard just how much the poor and lower middle class will suffer from the spending cuts in place due to the deal made by Congress. I suspect that bits and pieces will trickle down to us in the next few weeks. The only certainty we have is that the distressed wealthy few will have to wait just a little longer to have their terrible burdens relieved. Ah!!
 
When the Tea Baggers helped their Republican sponsors get their desperately needed tax cut extensions for the wealthiest 2%, they moved on to breaking every kind of opposition to their self-deceiving, socially-dividing proposals for spending cuts. These “Baggers” and their sponsors believe that they are entitled to everything they have and since they “did it all by themselves,” they make the assumption that anyone who is not a “Have” is that way because of laziness, lack of intelligence, or some other factor that could be controlled if one tried hard enough. So, why should society “pander” to those pathetic fools?!

At the “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington in October, my favorite sign was “Americans, born on third base, but think they hit a triple.” That certainly applies to our top 2% who are so unaware, they truly believe that family, luck, right-place-right-time, and various other factors out of their control played no major role in their achievement. Many of the wealthy are hard-working, but can one honestly say that they work harder than the people who clean their offices and homes, or the teachers and public workers whom they disparage?

One gets the feeling these days that the “Baggers” and their wealthy supporters think they can channel the Founders, the “Christian” Founders. It is hard to imagine, though, that our founders would have sacrificed so much to benefit so few.

Peace,
Ruth

Debt & Taxes

by muon
 

(video courtesy of coffeepartyusa.com)

This week we were treated to drama and angst from  Washington.  Congress is, after decades of driving the country into debt, all of a sudden worried about it.  At least, they want to LOOK like they're worried about it.

In any household, the residents can usually break down their sources of income:  wages, bank interest, loans, garage sales, jury duty, etc.

The income of the Federal Government can be broken down this way:

33.7% comes from taxes paid by you and me.
7.2% comes from corporate taxes.
53.2% comes from borrowing.
The remaining 5.9% comes from excise, estate and gift taxes, custom duties and fees and miscellaneous income.

Right away we can see that borrowing more than half of our income each year is going to get us into trouble. Isn't all that borrowing bad?  Well, if you look at the historical data on the Treasury Department's website, you'll see that the United States has been in debt since the Constitution was ratified in 1791.  U.S. debt that year was $75,463,476.52 -- comparable to 2 billion in today's money.  A lot of moolah in 1791.  Except for a brief respite in 1834, when the country came close to paying all its bills, the national debt has been climbing, sometimes slowly, sometimes (especially in war years) very quickly.  As of 4/7/2011, our total outstanding debt was $14,264,245,526,311.58.  I can't even wrap my brain around one percent of that amount.

But U.S. citizens like us are doing our part.  Our income, excise, estate and gift taxes provide over one third of the nation's income.  I'm content to pay my fair share, but I don't think we need to pay more.

Let's look at corporations.  Last November, the New York Times reported that "American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter" and that this was "the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago."

Yet, corporate taxes only make up 7.2% of U.S. total income.  In fact, since about 1940 (when corporations last contributed more to the nation's income than individuals), corporate taxes have been going way down while individual taxes were going up (see graph below).

So instead of cutting the programs that ordinary citizens need--and for that matter, are chipping in one third the cost of--let's bring corporate taxes back into line with individual taxes.  Not only that, but let's get rid of the perks corporations get that they're not paying for.  Things like subsidies, write-offs, deregulation, big government contracts and further tax cuts.  And let's get rid of politicians who take corporate money for their campaigns, then give big business sweetheart deals, driving up our taxes and the national debt.

Congress caused the debt to get out of control.  Now they're punishing us for it.  Time we start complaining.

muon

SHARED SACRIFICE?

The budget fight is the lead story on every newscast and has been for quite some time.  No one doubts that we need to cut spending significantly to lower our debt.  This is our current crisis.  When a people face a crisis, their best and worst qualities come to the front.  The morality of the people and their cause, it seems to me, is marked by whether the best or worst traits dominate the discourse.

The potential spending cuts on the table now involve defunding education, family planning, Head Start, heating assistance, public broadcasting, Medicaid, and a wide range of other service programs.  Most of these programs serve the most vulnerable among us, people who are so used to being hidden, with no power that the politicians who vote to remove these services will reap no negative effects.  Once it’s done, we all can say, “What could I do?  Some other, local groups will step up to bridge the gap.” Honestly, though, we know that’s not true and that we allowed our worst traits to rule.

I brought this issue up with my students yesterday.  We discussed the idea that the “haves” may be actively working to maintain a permanent underclass of people who can fill the jobs that immigrants currently fill, you know, the jobs supposedly nobody wants.  My students were distressed, not knowing how to respond to the idea that one group would do such a thing to fellow citizens. 

Where are the cuts in subsidies to the wealthy companies?  Where is the regulation to protect the environment?  Where are the closed loopholes that will require the wealthiest few to pay their fair share of the taxes to support our nation?  Where is the end to the wars that enrich the wealthy contractors who just happen to be supplying the weapons, the mercenaries, the supplies that keep the wars going?

There is no shared sacrifice, only one group suffers, the one that always feels the pain, but ends up buying the line that one day they too could be among the privileged few.  Such deception and abandonment make us  as a nation, in this crisis, morally bankrupt.

Peace (not likely),

Ruth

What Democrats Want in Their Politicians

by muon

In a word:  Backbone.

Granted, I'm basing this on a poll of the two dozen or so registered democrats I know personally, though I can guarantee that poll-wise, they're all virgins.  Gallup, Pew?  They never call this part of the country.

Even if you violently disagree with everything Republicans stand for, you have to admire them for their backbone.  They'll stubbornly take stands against abortion, gay rights, Islam, healthcare reform, global warming--in fact, standing up against the most people possible is what Republicans do best.  What do they stand for?  They say things like "family values" and "the American way"--vague, subjective phrases that mean different things to different people.  They don't come out and say it, but they have a solid record of standing up for Big Oil and Big Medicine and campaign contributors. They stand up for deregulation, so American businesses can cut corners and create disasters like oil spills and airplanes that come apart in midair.  They work hard to gather up every last dollar bill in America to put into the pockets of the wealthiest 1%.  Republicans excel at scamming a quarter of the remaining Americans into believing that this is somehow all good for them when it isn't.  Then they claim that this quarter represents the "majority of Americans."  Okay, so their math isn't perfect, but they have enough hutzpa to make up for it.

The other side of the aisle?  Even when Democrats had a
substantial majority of the House, they caved to the GOP. They don't understand that this is why they lost the majority, not to mention a load of governors and state legislators. Now Mr. Obama has announced his candidacy for the next presidential election.  His voter base is still waiting for him to act on the most important promises from the last election. "Change" was a word you heard a lot from his camp in 2008. They aren't using it so much this year, but they need to. Very little has changed in two and a half years. There's still no end in sight to our wars, Guantanamo is still open, too many Americans are out of work, too many lost their houses, too many are living in poverty, too many can't afford health care. Our schools are still substandard to the rest of the world. And possibly most frightening of all, irreversible climate change is two and a half years closer.  If you like to eat and breathe, this is a bad thing.

So, all you Democratic politicians out there, start standing up for what the voters of your base believe in. If you want support and enthusiasm, if you want donations, you have to stop being a bunch of wusses.

muon

The Parable of the Corporation

My guest blogger today goes by the pen name of Muon.  The explanation is that a muon is a tiny, seemingly insignificant part of an atom, yet is unstable enough to shake things up now and then.  Muon manages to live very happily on an income below the "poverty line."  
The Parable of the Corporation
by Muon

Let's pretend that you and I and all our neighbors are
shareholders of a mega-corporation.  Instead of money, they pay us in free products and services.  Since they give us these dividends even when they don't make a profit, we agree to the deal.

Like most shareholder/company relationship, we don't get all that involved in the details of how the business is run.  We assume the employees, from the CEO down to the peons,  know what they're doing.  Once in a while, we insist on replacing the CEO and top management, but for the most part, the system works.

Lately, however, the corporation has stopped being  profitable. For one thing, the Purchasing Department has been making sweetheart deals with vendors, giving contracts not to a low bidder, but to the same expensive companies over and over.  Management hasn't done anything about it because most of them have personal monetary interests in these companies.  The Receivables Department is lackadaisical about their work because they think the shareholders' investments are enough to keep the company going.  The Sales Department figures, if everyone else is slacking off, why should they look for new business?  The Manufacturing Department figures, if no one's selling the product, why make it?  But everyone wants to keep their jobs, so no one rocks the boat by changing things.

The reason everyone wants to keep their jobs?  The  employees set their own salaries, which is currently at least three times the income of your average shareholder.

The corporation is nearly bankrupt, but management has sworn to the shareholders that they'll balance this year's budget.  They decide to do this not by decreasing waste, finding new revenue sources, putting a halt to bad business practices, downsizing, or even by taking a paycut themselves.  No, they intend to balance the budget by cutting the products and services given to the very people who are footing the bill, the shareholders.  A small but loud percentage of the shareholders are even cheering top management on.

Is this parable far-fetched?  Not at all.  This is the way our government is run.  We let Congress have all the power over our tax money, including the power to funnel more of it to themselves by setting their salaries and setting policy which benefits the big businesses who contribute to their campaign funds.  All they care about is keeping that power by getting reelected.  Their idea of balancing the budget is to cut all the programs that directly benefit the people paying their  salaries--taxpayers.  They refuse to cut waste.  They refuse to look for new sources of revenue.  They refuse to encourage the startup of new American businesses which would then provide more tax income.  In fact, they want to cut business taxes and put more of the financial burden on the taxpayers, whose median household income this year is only about $50,000.

And Congress certainly never intends to give themselves a paycut.  If the minimum congressional salary were lowered to twice the national average household income, we could save 40 million a year.  Congressmen, like Senator Duffy, for instance, say they can't live on less than what they're making.

Frankly, if a Congressperson can't figure out how to live on $100,000 a year, he/she shouldn't be in charge of managing  the nation's money.

muon

Get with the Game!

It seems that the Federal budget is a political football that is being tossed around by both parties’ representatives, but neither is willing to line up on the field and play a fair game.

The Republicans insist that the only way to “fix” the budget is to cut services for the least able to stand up for themselves, the poorest, most needy. They claim that “everyone should share the sacrifices that are necessary to eliminate the deficits” so their suffering is inevitable.

The Democrats say that they won’t support such cuts because of the hurt it will do to a lot of people, yet continue to “negotiate” these cuts as though they may have to go along with them to “keep the Government from closing down next week.”

NONSENSE, ALL OF IT!!

Republicans know that the people targeted in their cuts generally do not vote. Why should it matter to them if folks can’t afford to heat their homes in winter? If legislators' kids didn’t need Head Start, it can’t possibly be really necessary. They claim that since they themselves had to work their way through college, who needs Pell grants? (Actually most Congresspersons didn't have work their way through college, and these days you'd have to work more than a minimum wage job full time to afford it). We taxpayers pay for Health Care for Congress and their families, so they don’t have to feel the pain of watching their children suffer without proper medical care.

The Democrats should be screaming about the hypocracy. Instead of letting the wealthy who are totally out of touch with real people set the agenda for the next year, they should be seriously looking at Defense Department programs that are not necessary, ways we can make medical care more cost effective (cutting out for-profit money gobblers), increasing taxes to include all income for Social Security and Medicare.

The field we hired our representatives to play on should be a level playing field. Currently it is not. One team wants to win by undermining the other (increasing poverty, destroying unions, increasing the power of the already powerful) while the other team stands around letting it happen because coming together as a team is hard work and might make them a bit unpopular with the folks at the money-trough (who are essential for running campaigns).

Maybe it’s time for the “fans” to get involved. We need to ask ourselves, "Who are we as a people?" What does it mean to be “American?” Is money all that matters? What are our responsibilities to our people?

Peace,
Ruth